


Meat Lover's Special

by AliLamba



Category: Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Pizza, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24766162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliLamba/pseuds/AliLamba
Summary: When Logan posts an ad for a roommate on craigslist, he thinks he knows what to expect.He gets a pretty steady stream of "why I'm amazing" essays, "my story is very sad" pleas, and a few "so long as you're not like my other asshole roommates" rants. And then he gets a response that's only one line.I won't piss you off.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 39
Kudos: 230





	Meat Lover's Special

**Author's Note:**

> Or, how many tropes can I fit in one fic.
> 
> Or, partially inspired by Trope-a-Palooza on Discord, partially I miss having something to write.
> 
>   
> artwork by [@veronicamarsfanart](https://veronicamarsfanart.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr!  
>   
> 

When Logan posts an ad for a roommate on craigslist, he thinks he knows what to expect. 

He gets a pretty steady stream of "why I'm amazing" essays, "my story is very sad" pleas, and a few "so long as you're not like my other asshole roommates" rants. And then he gets a response that's only one line. 

_I won't piss you off._

There's maybe no specific reason why it's the one he goes with. I mean, honestly, he thinks (after he's sent the "when can you move in I'm not at all joking" email) – this guy could be a murderer. 

"You are most definitely not a murderer."

Logan's eyes are a little wide when he opens the door and sees a short, skinny blonde holding a box like eight times her size.

“Uh. Can I…help you?”

She shoves past him, and he instinctually moves out of her way.

“Yeah I’m here to move in.”

Logan still has his hand on the doorknob. The girl drops the box onto the dining table.

“You’re – “

“Here to move in, yeah.”

“Oh, so you’re like – the girlfriend?”

She wipes sweat off her brow. “The girlfriend of who?”

Logan stares at her for a long moment. She’s small and pretty (definitely his type), and she’s most definitely the girlfriend of whoever his new roommate is. Which is cool, they hadn’t discussed particulars about sleepovers or whatever – well, okay, they hadn’t really discussed much of anything, but –

“So is he coming up behind you, or…?”

Logan checks the hallway landing, and then turns back toward the girl. She’s staring at him impassively, panting a little, most likely having to do with the busted elevator and three flights of stairs.

And then it dawns on him.

_Oh shit._

He winces. “You’re the roommate.”

“I’m the roommate.”

Logan scrubs his face. “Is it shitty that I thought you were a guy?”

“Why would you think I was a guy?”

“Your application was the sentence _I won’t piss you off_.”

“Do only girls piss you off?”

“Uh.” This conversation went in a direction he was not expecting. “No? Look, I’m totally confused.”

“Yeah. Is the tap water drinkable?”

Logan watches as she walks into the kitchenette and starts opening cupboards. “Uh. Yeah.”

She finds a glass and fills it, chugging it in four gulps. She refills it, drinks again, then looks at him. “It probably would’ve been fun to see how long you could’ve thought of me as the girlfriend.”

He has to abashedly agree. “You could have created a whole person. A new reason for him to be out of town every night.”

She grins. “I’m thinking his name was probably Sebastian and he traveled for work. NASA.”

“That’s some serious travel.”

“Yeah, you can’t just turn around on your way to the moon.”

Logan still looks and feels pained about being such an ass.

“Yeah, well, I probably would have deserved that.”

She nods with closed lips.

“Anyway,” she says. “Sebastian’s in space. And I’ve got more stuff.”

It probably would be polite to help her move her stuff inside, but he sort of has the idea that at this point she _really_ doesn’t want his help. So he starts cleaning instead, really, just trying to do _anything_ to look busy and avoid looking at her as she carries in box after box after lamp after box.

“Hey, this is probably where we’re supposed to like, bond or whatever? But I have a test tomorrow that I really have to study for, so.”

She’s got all her boxes moved into her room. She even has her mattress all rolled up into this cocoon she dragged up the stairs.

“Yeah, that’s cool. Pizza okay?”

She rubs her nose. “Right. This is probably where we should establish ground rule number one, which is – we don’t have to be friends. I promised not to piss you off, and that’s a promise I’m going to keep. But I have one semester of law school left and then I have to pass the Bar, so. I’m sort of all stocked up on friends for the moment, if that’s okay with you.”

Logan doesn’t really know what to do. So he nods.

It’s an easy first few weeks because she’s an easy roommate, and they don’t interact much. Veronica (he figures out that’s her name when her mail starts showing up) keeps odd hours and mostly spends time running out the door to go to class, or something. She listens to quiet music and studies a lot, which, he’s sure is good, except that, you know, she’s an attractive girl living in his apartment and there’s this weird sort of thing that comes out mostly in the lurid dreams that really were going to happen anyway? But now they feature this little blonde pixie thing that flits in and out of his kitchen.

Which, he’s definitely not going to tell her about.

“So…” she says, standing in her doorway one day. “You’re always here.”

Logan stops playing his video game in this quiet sort of way. He hasn’t played at full volume since before she moved in, and right now his character is dying a pretty brutal death.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Uh…Navy. Navy, uh, aviator. Shore leave. Uh. Yeah that really sums it all up, actually.”

She raises her eyebrows, mildly impressed. “I was…not expecting that.”

“What, not expecting that to be my job?”

“Not expecting you to have a job, frankly. I figured you were some sort of trust fund kid.”

“Ah. What gave me away.”

She leans against her doorjamb. “The silverware.” She sighs. “You rich kids all have matching sets.”

He puffs a bit of laughter but doesn’t say anything right away.

“Well, that and the surfboard. The hair gel.”

He winces. “You found that huh.”

“And the chest wax. Which did wonders for my underarms, by the way.”

“That,” he points at her, “is for the surfboard.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Most of the time.”

She smiles.

There’s a strained sort of moment where they’re looking at each other and he’s realizing that they haven’t spoken this much since she moved in. And it’s been…weeks, really. Weeks and weeks, now.

“Uh,” he says, clearing his throat. “Everything okay?”

She nods, staring at nothing, staring at the carpeted floor. “Hard test tomorrow. I’m pretty sick of studying.”

Logan notices…that, his heart is beating, just a little bit faster. What?

Oh.

“Uh, d’you want to…” he leads, gesturing vaguely at his video game. “Use some of my hair gel?”

She smiles, as if she’s trying not to laugh, and all in a big puff of air she sits on the couch next to him. She takes a moment to pad the cushions, and look around the room from this vantage. It’s occurring to him that she’s likely never sat on this couch before.

“I’m guessing this is some incredibly nuanced, highly logic-driven, puzzle-based game with foundations in Sartre and Proust?”

“Yeah, just, point and shoot, basically. This one is about aliens.”

“Well I guess it could be more racist than that,” she muses, grabbing his video game controller. It’s one of those wireless ones and he keeps forgetting to charge it when he needs it. That one should be okay for a while.

“No laughing if I shoot myself in the face, okay.”

“Yeah, pretty sure they have coded for that,” he says, completely serious, and she smiles again.

“So, I think I have a problem with my roommate.”

Dick burps, loudly, before dropping his beer bottle to the bar.

“What, did they like, use your hair gel or something?”

“Nah, it’s more like,” he says, even though he’s pretty sure the answer is _yes_. “Dude I dunno it’s pretty stupid.”

“Wait. Waaaait wait wait wait wait. This is the chick, right? The freaking _chick?_ ” Dick excitedly leans up a little on his stool and Jackie gives him a warning glance. This would not be the first thing he’s broken in her bar. But it’s still their favorite, bar that is, and it opens at two in the afternoon, and they go pretty freaking regularly.

“Yeah I’m pretty sure they earned the right to _vote_ , Dick,” Logan says, glancing at Jackie with only a mild amount of anxiety.

“Dude. _Duuuuuude_ ,” Dick says. “Pleaaaase tell me you’re gonna hit it. Pleassee tell me you’re gonna hit it, and quit it, and hit it again.” He’s just invented literally the world’s worst song, and Logan can see Jackie’s glare harden on his friend from half a room away. Okay “friend” feels pretty heavily in quotations right now. There’s not a lot of people there, at the moment, and the TVs don’t really muffle his friend’s idiocy most of the time.

“Can you please shut up? No I’m not going to,” he takes a quick sip of his beer, “hit it.”

“Then what’s the problem again?”

“It’s just,” Logan plays with the label on his bottle. They’d been out surfing all day. It was blisteringly hot out, enough so that getting out of the cold Pacific ocean felt like a mistake. “I dunno.”

Dick is watching the sports on the TV and doesn’t seem to be listening.

Logan drinks again from his beer and questions whether it’s safe to drop his head against the bar. He’s got four months left on his leave, getting involved with _anyone_ is reallly just not on his bingo card. He’d really committed to the idea of maybe a few flings, someone he’d meet at the bar, maybe Jackie would give it another go or something, even though she’s pretty committed to her current girlfriend, or so she said the second she saw him again.

But then – he really, really wasn’t looking to be impressed by anything, and literally in the room next to him, is this really hot, intelligent, sarcastic, funny, blonde _thing_ and he’s having a hard time figuring out what’s wrong with her.

“Yeah maybe we should go out Friday night.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Dick answers, and he brings his beer to clink with Logan’s.

Veronica wakes up Saturday morning and finds _something_ on her couch.

She’d snuck out early to play Logan’s video game. He’s usually either dead asleep or out doing something by the time she emerges at a reasonable hour, and she’s ready to attempt the Worm Hole to Schnillinga mission when she realizes that the couch is looking decidedly more lumpy and decidedly _reeks_.

She pauses, hand still on her doorknob, trying to take it in. She and her roommate hadn’t really discussed the idea of friends, etc., hadn’t really discussed much of anything, and just as she’s about to head back to her room and hide until everything is back to normal, said roommate’s door cracks open, and, someone steps out very, very quietly.

She’s pretty, is the first thing Veronica notices. Tall, and, freaking _willowy,_ or whatever, and the fact that she’s doing the walk of shame would really be more embarrassing if she didn’t nearly jump when she saw Veronica, and get a horrifically charming shade of pink on her cheeks.

“Oh, sorry,” she whispers, loud enough for Veronica to hear. “I was just – “

“Yeah,” Veronica says, trying to smile. “Noooo worries, you want some water?”

“No, thanks.” She glances quickly around the room. “Damn I would kill for some coffee, though.”

Logan wakes up and stretches, feeling mildly relieved to be naked, satisfied that he’s taken off sufficient edge to be able to face his roommate the next time he sees her walk out of the bathroom in nothing but her towel.

He glances to the bedside table, scratching his short-cut hair, and is pleased to see that she’s left her number on a scrap of paper, neatly folded into quarters. Cute.

Logan exhales and gets out of bed, grabbing some linen pajama pants that he’s started wearing mostly because he thinks Veronica wouldn’t appreciate it if he walked around in his boxers, and leaves his room so he can relieve his bladder.

And, two things he notices right away.

One: Dick is still on his god damn couch.

Two: Veronica and the girl he’d hooked up with are laughing over bagels in his god damned kitchenette.

They stop laughing when they see him, it petering out as his hook-up – Hannah – holds a piece of bagel in front of her mouth so she can swallow with dignity.

“Oh, hey, sorry, we didn’t want to wake you.”

“Uh, no, yeah, you didn’t,” Logan says, a bit at a loss. He glances at Veronica, whose expression is literally unreadable.

“Coffee?” she asks, unnervingly chipper as she holds up a steaming mug.

“Yeah, uh, rain check, I’m just going to – “ he glances at Dick again, desperately wishing he was awake to mitigate this awkwardness. “Shower, so. Yeah. Thanks.” He darts inside before he can finish that really pretty pathetic conversation.

And he totally deserves the tango of giggles that are clearly at his expense.

He takes a longer than sane shower, waiting until the hot water has completely run out, using nearly all of her body wash in the process. It’s the coconut, he thinks. It smells really nice, is all, and he has to keep buying it so she won’t notice it’s missing.

When he gets out and shaves, really doing _everything humanly possible_ to justify being in a bathroom, he decides he’s not really appreciating his roommate in the moment. In fact, he never really needed a roommate to begin with, was just bored and pretty lonely and his houseplant kept dying, so, maybe he and Veronica need to talk. Maybe they should talk, and figure out whether it’s working for her, because maybe it’s not working for him, so much, to be cohabitating with her, in no small part because she’s so much freaking better than him at his own god damned video game.

He leaves the bathroom and finds Veronica just cleaning up.

“It was safe to come out about twenty minutes ago,” she tells him, not looking up. “She’s nice, by the way. Did you know she’s a professional yoga instructor? She’s going to give me a month of free classes, so.” Veronica holds up a little card.

“Yeah,” Logan drawls, annoyed. “She’s a keeper.”

Veronica glances at him, maybe trying to gauge his mood. Logan feels her stare, even when it stays on his face, even when it doesn’t dart down to his exposed chest, the towel slung low over his hips.

Damn it.

Stop being so freaking charming, god damnit.

“I’m…going for a run.”

She raises an eyebrow, which he barely sees because he’s turning towards his room, only pausing when she clears her throat.

“And, this?” she asks, gesturing to the couch, where Dick is still drooling.

Logan frowns. “Yeah, yeah, it’s my turn to take out the trash, I know.”

Running turns out to just be a stunningly awful idea, because it’s god damn hot in Southern California, that’s why, and he gets about two blocks away from his building before he wants to sit on the pavement and stare at the ground until it’s a reasonable amount of time to return.

He heads to the bar instead, and Jackie gives him a pity pilsner, as she’s now determined to call it.

“Just go back to your own apartment already. You’re sweaty enough.”

“Yeah but, it’s more than that.”

“More than what? You own the place, right?”

Logan screws up his face but doesn’t respond. Yeah he owns the place. “Look, it’s just – I did the thing, last night, the thing where you sleep with a person so you don’t want to sleep with the person who you actually want to sleep with, but who doesn’t want to sleep with you.”

“How do you know?”

“What, about the system? Um, science? Pretty sure it’s science.”

“No, about the, her not wanting to sleep with you.”

Logan just stares at her, because, it’s honestly never occurred to him before then.

“She does not want to sleep with me.”

Jackie just shrugs. She’d let him in before opening, and even with the now open door, no one else has come in yet.

“Maybe if you ask nicely though,” she says, and she heads to the back to unpack some crates.

Logan is trying to figure out which activity will take his mind off that conversation with Jackie the _most,_ when he opens the door to his apartment and smells pizza.

If Dick is still here, so help him –

“Hey,” Veronica says, where she’s shutting her laptop at the dining table. She’s never done that before, never studied out in the open like this.

“Hey?” Logan asks, wondering if he’s walking into a trap.

“I got pizza.”

“I can smell it.”

“Do you not like pizza?’

“Is that a thing? Do people not like pizza?”

Veronica looks at him for a beat, crosses her arms, leans back in her chair.

“Hey are you busy right now?”

Logan looks behind him, toward the door, then back at the only things that ever occupy his time: the TV, his surfboard, his dirt bike, when it’s not so friggen hot. Busy? He hasn’t been busy in over a month.

“Nope. My dancing card’s free.”

She nods, rubbing her face, and gesturing to the table. It’s an invitation to sit, and he does it, with a weird, sinking feeling in his gut. This is not going to end well, he feels, with the eerie premonition that he’s about to lose his roommate. Great.

“So,” she starts. “Explain to me how this ‘shore leave’ thing works.”

Logan starts a little, adjusting his weight.

“My, my shore leave?”

“Yeah, like, what happens when it’s over.”

Logan tries not to stare, so, he looks at the kitchenette. When did she get a fruit bowl? He hasn’t noticed that before. It’s nice. “Well, assuming naval warfare is still a thing - which, I have on good authority it will be - in three and a half months I report back to my base and then get assigned some sort of mission, which will put me on a ship for probably the six months after that. You’re welcome to stay,” he adds quickly, in case that’s where this is going. “Seriously I know you didn’t sign a year-long lease or anything but you don’t have to move out just because I do.”

“No, yeah, I wasn’t worried about that.”

He nods, and realizes, he doesn’t have anything more to add. Shore leave isn’t complicated.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” she starts, and Logan gets the impression she would be an amazing cross-examiner. “We’re both young, we’re both, attractive, and I don’t think either of us is interested in anything long-term, considering that I haven’t seen you go on literally any dates, in the month that I’ve lived here.”

“You haven’t – what?”

“There’s been a lot of Friday nights, bud,” she says, kind of patronizingly.

Logan’s realizing he’s still in his running clothes.

“So, we’re both attractive, you are clearly heterosexual, I am, just FYI, also heterosexual, and I think that maybe we should do the heterosexual thing and…visit each other’s rooms, sometimes.”

Logan’s mind feels stunningly blank.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m saying we should…meet in the middle.”

“I’m literally not following you.”

“You’ve been letting me play with your joystick.”

“Yeah no I don’t get it.”

“I think that maybe, we, as consenting adults,” she looks at him, and licks her lips, a little. “Should fuck, as all the kids are saying these days.”

What…what was he doing, a minute ago? Is this his actual, real life? Is he passed out on Dick’s couch?

“Unless, you’re not –“

“ _Yes_ ,” Logan interjects, and he’s pretty annoyed by how loud it came out, and how his voice had the audacity to crack, like some dumb teenager’s. “Yes, I mean, that is, uh, that is something I could, consider.”

She raises her eyebrows at him.

“Okay, well. This is where you would divulge any weird kinks, or gross internet fetishes, that I should be aware of.”

Logan shakes his head, hardly able to wrap his mind around what is happening to him. “Nope, no, pretty usual stuff for me. Hey you’ve got a full-size lizard costume, right?”

She smiles, a little. “Pretty sure I can get one shipped,” she muses, before putting her hands flat on the table. “Okay. Well, I suggest that we start on Friday, and see how things go.”

“Friday?”

“Yeah, we can call it a closing period. Gives us a few days to decide if we really want to do it. I’m thinking, maybe, once or twice a week?”

“A _week?_ ” he asks, as if they are actually discussing the ways that they will soon be copulating and holy crap what is happening.

“Is that…” she’s wincing, a little. “Is that going to be a problem, or something?”

Logan schools his features, and sits up straighter. “No, no, I was just – no twice a week shouldn’t be a problem. Make it five times a week I don’t care I mean it was your suggestion, the…” God _damn_ he’s babbling. “The two days, a week…”

There is a brightness to her eyes which he interprets as purely mocking. _Damnit._

“Slow down cowboy,” she murmurs, and suddenly he remembers that she’d bought pizza. “Let’s start in the beginning.”

Logan nods, trying his damndest to adopt a very serious, nonchalant demeanor. “Sounds perfectly logical. Until Friday, then.”

He stands, and she does too, and he keeps his hands flat against his sides until he reaches it out, purely formal, and she grasps his hand, and together they shake, as if they are simply agreeing to go into, like, real estate together.

Yeah, they make it to Tuesday.

See, that’s the thing about revealing your cards like that. Suddenly Logan is aware that Veronica is not entirely opposed to sleeping with him, and that is just a) bonkers, and b) completely impossible to stop thinking about. He starts to think her choice of sleepwear is intentional, the spaghetti straps and short shorts he’d once dismissed as weather appropriate now apparently a means to entice him, maybe. He starts forgoing a shirt most of the time. He wakes up to find Veronica leaning over the kitchen counter, shirt cut low, as she highlights her way through a textbook, ballpoint pen stuck between her teeth.

He finds reasons to exercise with his door open, or in the living room.

And Tuesday night when she gives up on studying, they order pizza again from this place, and sit down to play video games together, and it’s just, their thighs touch just once, and it’s – they just sort of go for it.

Right there on the couch, mostly.

I mean, they go back to his room, which he’s maybe definitely been keeping a little bit neater, laundered the sheets over the weekend sort of thing, but not because he ever thought _this_ was a possibility, okay. Not because he ever thought Veronica Mars would be naked inside it, staring up at him just that way, while he’s trying to remember where the freaking condoms are because he can barely think at all.

And that’s how it starts, the gentle and incredibly effective destruction of his own spirit.

“Just, kill me please,” Logan whines, head sunk onto the bar while Jackie preps her garnishes.

“Oh come on,” she croons, trying hard not to laugh. “Seriously? Don’t they call it ‘the little death’ for a reason?”

He turns his head to squint one eye at her. “Shouldn’t you know?” he asks, before cringing and turning back to the bar. “Don’t answer that.”

Jackie laughs under her breath.

Their relationship had been fleeting, ridiculously casual, definitely a last resort kind of thing. It had been over for a long, long time, which is why he feels comfortable comparing the two. This thing he has going with Veronica…it feels different, in just about every way that counts. They literally cannot stop fucking, for one, every night in one of their rooms, and it’s killing him a little how much he’d like to push for a dinner date.

“Just ask her out, if you want to,” Jackie says, because she’s always enjoyed stating the obvious. Logan groans.

“I leave in less than three months. She’s studying to be a lawyer. Don’t really think we have long-term potential.”

Jackie puts up her hands as if to say, _if you say so_ , or something.

Logan fights the urge to groan again. This is what he should have known from the beginning, really. This is what he gets for punching above his weight. Veronica is clearly 100% out of his league, in all the real ways that count. She should be living in some bougie apartment in New York City, with some boyfriend who wears ties to work. Who works for freaking NPR, or something.

“I mean,” Jackie reasons, dumping lemon slices into a dish. “The worst she can do is say no.”

She’s right, so he resolves to hate her forever.

Which is how they got to talking about the Meat Lover’s Special.

“Hey, did you know,” Logan is saying, trying to ignore the warmth spreading all over his skin as naked Veronica has her head tucked against his naked chest, and is drawing little lines on his rib cage. “That there are these wild things called restaurants? And that they serve – get this – food, on like, real plates, for one.”

“Wait, stop,” she says, leaning up. “You’re blowing my mind.”

“Yeah,” Logan nods, fighting a smile. “And then there’s the best part. You get to eat there, with people. With people you _like_.”

“That sounds bananas I can’t even believe that’s a viable business model.”

Logan laughs a little.

“The pizza place we like is doing a meat lover’s special…” he prompts, tugging at the ends of her hair.

“Hmmm,” Veronica says, through closed lips. Logan looks up at her.

“Hmmm?”

“Hmmm but like, I have all the meat lover’s special I need, right here,” she says, wicked smile in place, as she starts kissing her way down his torso.

And it’s ridiculous, the way he starts leaving coupons out on the counter, deliberately stops buying communal olive oil, all in the hopes that she’ll take him up on the offer. Meat Lover’s Special has become their unofficial code word for doing it, which he realizes the one time he brings her to the bar to meet Jackie, after she’s had a truly horrendous group project fall apart, and everything is going well with them, too well, and Veronica is looking at him with that gleam in her eye, and then she’s saying that it’s getting late, and she could really, honestly go for a Meat Lover’s Special.

And if you think they didn’t rush back to the apartment and have sex four feet inside the door, then you would be dead wrong.

Logan is staring at the calendar on the wall, drinking morning coffee. He’s just in his boxers, one hand holding his weight on the counter, and it’s really bumming him out that he has just a month left before he’s due back at base. His CO sent an email with some details, a few days ago, that he’s been ignoring.

Veronica comes out of his room and stretches, wearing one of his t-shirts. She’s so short that it hangs past her butt, which is a shame, but he has no small amount of male pride seeing her in it, so he’s not going to complain.

“Everything okay?” she asks, heading past him to the coffee pot, filling a cup of her own. She likes this hazelnut creamer he’s really gotten pretty used to.

“Yeah, it’s just.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Lookin at the calendar. You’re uh, you’re rid of me in a month.”

Veronica pauses, just after screwing the creamer cap back on. The fridge door is still open.

“Oh yeah?” she asks, and Logan takes a quick sip of his coffee so she won’t see his expression.

“Means another few weeks before finals, right? You need help studying?”

Veronica finishes with the milk-product and turns to face him, still holding the carton, folding her arms across her chest. “Yeah speaking of,” she says. “I should probably, I mean, you should probably start, well, I have to ramp up my studying, so.”

Logan looks at her, ignoring the tightness right below his rib cage.

Veronica looks at the calendar too, but doesn’t seem to actually see it, starting instead to the fridge, closing it, then opening it again so she can put the creamer away and then finally closing it for good.

“In fact, I have a study session with some friends in a bit. Okay if I shower first?”

Logan puts down his coffee cup, and puts both hands on the counter, so he won’t offer to follow her in. He nods. “Yeah,” he adds, because she’s already halfway across the room.

She starts coming home late, which is, which is something, and he finds that he plays video games late into the night hoping to see her, leaving his bedroom door open even though she doesn’t always join him, anymore. There’s this freaking kid named Niko he keeps running into on Planet Vigorocon and he _should_ report him for his homophobic remarks but he’d like to really punish him in the game first, so.

There are many nights where Veronica barely comes out of her room. They still hook up, which, is why he can’t really complain, really, but it’s in these clear and concise ways (“I’ve got to be on campus in twenty minutes;” “If I don’t finish this paper tonight I’m done;” “I have to wake up _really_ early…”) and it always seems like there’s a definitive beginning and end, now.

Friday night, after a long, long day of surfing with Dick and staring into space with Jackie, he comes home, and is mildly appeased to see her spread over the dining table, stacks of print outs and lots of index cards and even a few of those pads of lined, yellow paper he knows are called _legal pads_.

“Hey,” he calls out, mostly just to let her know he’s there, in part to make sure he’s not interrupting anything. “I’m going to go hang up my wet suit. You want pizza?”

She’s distracted, walking around the table, moving pieces of paper from place to place. “Yeah, fine,” she says, off-hand, and he doesn’t think much of it. He orders on his phone, takes a long-ass shower, and changes, laying the wetsuit on the tiny little balcony off his bedroom.

He comes out of his room rubbing a small hand towel over his head, wondering if they have any beer.

Then he looks at Veronica, who is leaning over the table, frowning.

“Everything okay?”

“Don’t you want to,” she starts, waving a hand in his general direction. “I dunno, put on a shirt or something? I have the AC on.”

He looks down at himself. What?

“Uh. Yeah. Sure,” he says, unsure of what is going on. Is it her work? Does she have to study, or something?

He heads back to his room, frowning, and stops when he’s inside. He puts his hands on his hips and looks around. What’s going on with her? He’s been using the wax, maybe she doesn’t like it. Logan’s eyes light on to some fabric, and he pauses for a second. That would be, probably, very stupid.

But no one’s ever called him smart, so.

Logan hears the doorbell ring and heads into the main room, ignoring the sharp intake of breath coming from the dining room table. He opens the door, really loves the startled delight of the food delivery guy, and tips him handsomely.

He heads back in with the pizza. “It’s Friday,” he says, holding up the box. “Meat Lover’s Special tonight.”

She’s frowning at him.

“Logan, take that off.”

He looks around. “What, my pants? Veronica. Please. Let me eat first.”

“You know what I mean. That’s my shirt. Take it _off._ ”

“This?” He puts down the pizza and looks for some napkins. “I’ve always had this shirt.”

“Yes, you’ve always had a shirt that says _Neptune Law Society: Maritime is Our Moto, Poseidon Our Creed_ that also happens to be about five sizes too small.”

“Yeah. I _love_ the law.”

She glares at him. She does _not_ think this is funny. “Take, that, off.”

“But what if I get chilly. The air conditioning is on.”

“ _Logan_ ,” she groans, looking at her work. “Logan, I just do _not_ have time for this.”

She starts pulling together her stuff, huffing, shoving things together carelessly.

“What, for me?” She looks up at him, sharp. “Just say it, Veronica. You don’t have time for _me._ No, you don’t _want_ to have time for me.”

“Seriously?” she calls back. “Seriously, you want to do this? Fine. We were never serious, Logan. This was a _fling_. It’s _been_ a fling, for months, and now I’m busy, and you’re leaving soon, and things were going to end anyway, so I just – “ she laughs, almost. “So I just don’t see why it’s such a big deal!”

He’s glaring back at her.

“Say it again.”

“Say what, that we were never serious? Logan, we both knew that going in.”

“No, the part about.” He takes a deep breath. “Say that it’s because I’m leaving soon.”

She looks at him, for an indeterminate amount of time. The moment seems to stretch, the world seems to pause, something like that. But they just stare at each other for way too long.

“No,” she finally says. She grabs an armful of stuff, not nearly everything, and looks past him. “And your pizza’s getting cold.”

She walks to her room, and shuts the door behind her.

Logan is staring at the ceiling in his room. It’s sometime in the middle of the night, and he can’t sleep.

This is pretty normal for him, in the weeks before he ships out again. Time starts meaning less, because there is so little of it, suddenly. He starts thinking of things as _one last:_ one last run. One last swim. One last burrito from that truck he likes by the beach. He finds that he doesn’t want to sleep, as much, because he wants to soak it all in.

Which, okay, currently, there’s not a lot going on. He’s not even totally sure what day it is. Veronica is avoiding him, that’s abundantly clear, and he doesn’t even want to talk to Jackie about it. His…his _roommate_ slips in and out, usually spending most of the day _out_ ; at the library, on campus, one time he was jogging past a coffee shop and saw her in it, you know, _out._ Not near him.

Which is, just as well, really.

He didn’t need to take her with him.

He started packing and collecting all the stupid little things he likes to bring with; there’s this one energy bar he goes totally nuts for, a few more books, but, really, he’s started reading more on his phone anyway. Hazelnut creamer. He and Dick drove down the coast one day to a new surfing spot and spent all day drinking beer, catching waves, eating beef jerky. It was great.

But now he’s staring at his ceiling, and he can’t sleep.

His window is open, so at first he thinks the small click of sound is from out there, somehow. But then the shadows on his ceiling change, and Logan looks to his door, and sees Veronica slip inside, quiet as a shadow.

His shoulders relax.

But his stomach is still tense.

He feels like speaking would spook her, so he just watches, as she finds him awake, as she bites her lip in the smallest amount of indecision, as she crosses the room and crawls into his bed and then crawls on top of him. She’s got her knees on either side of his torso, and she looks down at him, and then when he opens his mouth to say something, she covers his mouth with her hand.

“Shut up,” she says, voice mostly at a whisper, adding the other hand. “Just – shut up.” She’s looking at him, and he’s propped a few inches off the bed, this pathetic half lean to see her better. He stares at her face, wanting to bring that with him too. He’s never…he’s never really wanted anything so much, really.

And it’s just… _jesus_. There are just, honest to god, _tears_ in her eyes.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she explains, helplessly, and one of those purely ridiculous tears falls down her cheek.

His mouth is still covered with her hands, so, he doesn’t say anything. But he reaches up with his hand and thumbs the tear away, leaving his palm against her face as she leans into it. She takes a wet breath, and laughs a bit at herself, or the situation, or something, and then she pulls her hands away from him, leans down, and kisses him.

Logan has to leave a week and a half later, and Veronica drives him to the naval base. He’s doing the noble thing and pretending he can’t see her silently crying, and she keeps snapping that she’s on her period, anyway. He knows she’s not, but, he’s not going to start lording that information over her.

She finished her finals, top in her class, all across the board, and he’s honestly pretty god damn proud of her. He’s been hosting her study sessions, making sure Mac and Hamilton and Wallace and Mallory all have enough to eat and drink while they discuss really riveting topics like _James Franco vs. Whatever_ , or something like that. He’s not really paying attention. All he really sees is the way Veronica looks at him now. How she feels pressed against him all night long. How she smells like coconut after they shower.

Maybe this’ll be his last tour. Maybe… Well. Who knows.

Veronica gives him more wet kisses over the emergency break, promising to Skype and email. Who knew, huh?

“Hey,” he murmurs, brushing hair out of her face. “Whatever happened to Sebastian? He’ll keep you company.”

She laughs, this little broken, pathetic sound that nevertheless warms him up inside. “Space accident,” she says, rubbing her nose.

Logan kisses her again, long and lingering, and then gets out of the car with a grin that makes her smile in kind.

He lets himself turn around only twice on the way to the ship, and when he’s on it, he pulls out his phone. He dials the number he knows by heart now, and waits for someone to answer.

“Yeah, I’d like to place an order for delivery? ...You guys still doing a Meat Lover’s Special?”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Covers (AliLamba fics)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746631) by [VeronicaMarsFanArt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeronicaMarsFanArt/pseuds/VeronicaMarsFanArt)




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